Thanks for the replies! Let me give a bit more info to those who were asking:
Case: Antec 900
Mobo: ASUS P5Q Deluxe (newest drivers)
CPU: Intel Q9450 (2.66 stock non-overclocked)
Ram: Mushkin XP PC2-8500 DDR2 1066 (2x2GB)
Video Card: Visiontek HD 4870 X2 (catalyst 8.8)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar 640GB
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S203N
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)
Heatsink: OCZ Vendetta 2
Thermal Paste: MX-2
Ambient room temperature is actually quite chilly, it's in a basement room and I get pretty cold down there, I'd estimate between 15 to 20 degrees celsius. Case has 4x 120mm fans (two front, one rear, one side mounted to the plexi). Heatsink has a Noctua PF-12 fan and the top of the case has the 200mm fan.
First time I applied the paste I filled the gaps on the heatsink first and then put two dots of paste about the size of this
. I then spread that across thinly covering the portion of the heatsink that would be touching the CPU.
Noticed temps were idle at about 40 degrees and since I wanted to overclock I figured I must have done something wrong. I dismounted the heatsink, wiped off the heatsink and cpu with some rubbing alcohol and reapplied the paste, this time putting a bit on the chip first and doing the same process with the heatsink. After everything was reattached temps were about the same, though averaging at about 43 degrees.
Normally I'd think that was normal but I thought these 45nm chips were supposed to produce less heat? My old computer which is using a stock heatsink/fan (and 1x 120mm rear case fan) attached to an amd athlon 4800 X2 (95nm?) is running at 21 degrees idle. That's got to be...3 year old technology or so...
I bought the thermalright bolt-thru kit to use instead of the pushpins so I will let you know what happens when I remount it once again. Am I doing the thermal paste wrong? Should I be using more? Less? I basically just spread it nice and evenly (under a magnifying glass/tech light combo) across the heatsink. I'd say it's no more thick than a few sheets of paper. There were no gaps or anything.
Thanks for any recommendations. Sorry for being longwinded...it's just that I was really anticipating some good overclocking but I'm not willing to go ahead with it at 40 degrees idle
